


Late Nights

by LesboDyke



Series: The Aca-Child [1]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Also Beca has a mouth on her, Bad Dreams, Bechloe adopt themselves a giraffe child, Canon Divergence, Canon? What's Canon, Comedy, Established Bechloe, F/F, Gen, SOFT GAYS, She swear, first in a series, this will literally just rot your teeth, very very mild angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 06:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11351358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LesboDyke/pseuds/LesboDyke
Summary: Beca keeps getting woken up by Emily having bad dreams. By the end, she realises that they've adopted her accidentally.





	Late Nights

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the first fic in what I've been calling my 'Aca-Child' series that I've been brewing for a surprisingly long time. They're gonna be kinda... semi chronological oneshots of 90% teeth rotting fluff and cuteness, though I do have some angst planned (because, well, flat out fluff gets boring after a while! and I'm not quite ready to relinquish my satan status!)  
> There's a little bit of this angst in this fic, which will hopefully explain a good portion of my canon divergence with this series.  
> (Warning: Mention of past death of a close family member, but a long time ago)  
> Any other canon divergence will be revealed in time.
> 
> Anyway!
> 
> I've the first 3 fics planned, but I'm happy for idea's to be suggested on what you think would be cute in the series! However, I shan't be doing any smut (tbh the T rating is mostly because of Beca's mouth!) so just... baring that in mind if you could (Basically, I won't go higher than an M, where it's suggested or it's a fade to black) but yeah, feel free to suggest. You might not see exactly what you want, but it's worth a shot~!
> 
> (Also: I have been spelling Beca with two C's for like most of my life. I THINK I fixed it all throughout this fic, but if you spot a double C, PLEASE lemme know in the comments so I can come back and fix it! Thanks!)

Beca was a light sleeper. She always had been. When her father had first started dating her step-mother, it had made things awkward and she’d spent a good few months sleeping with ear-plugs, just to save what little sanity she may have had left.

But Beca didn’t mind so much when it was Chloe waking her, more often than not. Normally as she shifted and pulled Beca closer. Occasionally when she’d talk in her sleep (Beca had started sleeping with her phone on hand with the hope of recording one someday.)

So when something jolted her awake, Beca’s first instinct was to check on Chloe. She was fast asleep, had her usual hold on Beca and didn’t seem to be moving any time soon. Upon realising this, Beca cast her awareness outwards until she recognised the sound of footsteps and soft sniffles. Someone was up, moving and crying. Her first instinct was to wake Chloe, have her go deal with it. She’d always been better with the emotional issues. But the rest of her slapped her across the face and reminded her how stressed Chloe had been recently and how much she **needed** her sleep and decided that it was for the best if she went to investigate. She could easily handle a little less sleep.

With a sigh, Beca left with the warmth of her girlfriend and their bed and headed off to find the source of the noise.

“Emily?” Beca frowned, spotting the newest Bella moving back to her room. “Hey, what’s wrong?” She asked. She may not be very **good** at the feelings discussions, but she could tell that Emily had been crying.

“It’s nothing…” Emily muttered, shaking her head. “Sorry… if I woke you, I mean.” Beca shrugged.

“I’m a light sleeper. Wanna come have cocoa? I won’t get back to sleep for a while now.” Not true. She could fall back asleep in an instant, but she didn’t want to leave Emily alone if she’d been crying. There was nothing worse than being alone and upset.

“There isn’t any in the kitchen…” Emily mumbled, and Beca grinned slightly.

“Yeah there is. Fat Amy likes to hide the good stuff, but I know where. Come on, I know there’s even mini marshmallows in her stash.” Emily was still sniffling slightly, but she wiped her eyes and nodded.

“Okay, sure.”

Beca hummed absent-mindedly as she microwaved the milk for their cocoa. Emily was sat at the table playing with her fingers silently and Beca wondered what she could be possibly thinking. She'd always envied those who had the skill to sense emotions, almost, and help deal with any mood or problem. Beca had always been rather spectacularly useless at anything like that. She couldn't even handle her own emotional issues, Chloe did that for her. She outsourced. Beca tried not to snort at what a stupid notion that was, however true it might be.

"Don't tell Fat Amy I showed you her stash. She showed me while drunk and I don't think she remembers." Beca said with a smile in Emily's direction, sliding a mug of cocoa towards her. "Add as many as you'd like, though. I'll buy her a new bag if we use them all." She added on, nudging the bag of mini marshmallows towards the other girl, after taking a handful herself.

For a moment, the room was silent bar the soft 'plop' of both of them adding more marshmallows that was in any way healthy to their drinks. Beca wondered whether Chloe would wake up and worry that she was gone. There was a chance, but they were easy to find, so it wouldn't be too bad. Not to mention that Chloe slept like the dead. Her attention turned back to Emily.

"So..." Beca started, before Emily cut her off, having been gearing herself up to speak.

"I have bad dreams." She wasn't looking at Beca. She was staring down at her cocoa, watching her marshmallows slowly melt into the heat of the liquid. "Not, like, nightmares. They're not scary or anything, just kinda upsetting. About my mom, mostly. I wasn't really... I mean..." Emily stammered for a second, struggling to express herself. She hadn't really told anyone about these dreams, not after her Dad had started dating again, which was when they'd gotten bad again.

"It's okay." Beca reached over the table, resting her hand atop Emily's and squeezing lightly. "If you wanna keep talking you can, but you don't have to." She squeezed again and Emily continued to speak.

"I was ten when my mom passed. It was... it was a long time coming, y'know? And I thought I'd made peace with it and then... someone told me about Heaven and Hell..." Emily sighed, but felt bolstered when Beca squeezed her hand again.  
"We're an Athiest family, y'know? So I hadn't really thought about it until someone explained it to me and the thought of my Mom possibly going somewhere horrible just... frightened me. And I started having bad dreams. They stopped for a while and then my Dad started dating again and... I dunno." Emily shrugged,  **finally** looking up at Beca.

Beca felt her heart go out to Emily. She'd been too young to remember her own mom outside of pictures, she couldn't imagine being old enough to understand, but too young to really process. Ten years old.

"We... we can't replace your mom, kid. But, we're family now. We're here for you. If this happens again, don't be afraid to come knock on my door, okay? We can talk, have more cocoa, watch a movie or whatever. You don't have to go through this alone." Maybe Beca was better at this than she originally thought, because Emily did seem to brighten  **slightly** at the suggestion.

"Thanks, Beca. Honestly, it feels kinda good just to get it out there."

"Do you mind if I share this with Chloe?" Beca had to ask, it was Emily's personal story, she'd never do it without permission. But in the same breath, she didn't want to be the only one carrying Emily's secret and trying to deal with it alone.

"Um... Okay, I guess? She won't get weird about it, will she?"

"Nah. It's just that we share a room. And really, Chloe is  _way_ better at this stuff than me. I share nearly everything with her but I won't tell her if you don't want me to." Beca explained, again squeezing Emily's hand.

"No, you can tell her. We're all family, I don't mind." Beca breathed a sigh of relief and nodded.

"Come on, lets go find a movie. We can fall asleep on the couch."

"Can it be a Disney movie?" Emily asked hopefully as Beca downed her cooled mug of cocoa and chuckled.

"I think we can swing that, yeah."

~~~

It was a bad week. Beca had been forced to lay down in a dark room at least once a day by Chloe because of headaches and Emily had been up every night with her dreams and it was all starting to take it's toll. Not just on Beca, Chloe and Emily, but on everyone in the Bella house.

"Stacie! I have told you a thousand times  _not_ to dry your fucking thongs in the laundry room! Use your bathroom, we don't wanna see that shit!" Beca was yelling, clearly crabby. Stacie, who normally held no shame, actually ducked her head and hurried into the laundry room to rescue her delicates from Beca's wrath.

"Chloe, can you do something?" Fat Amy asked, sticking her head into Chloe's room, finding her doing her homework. "Beca's on a rampage." Chloe sighed, closing her book and going to rescue their sisters from her girlfriend.

"Okay, Beca, come on." Chloe assessed the situation in a split second. Beca was tired and it was starting to affect her. She needed to stop being up so late with Emily. "Come lay down with me for a while, this is sore head cranky." She encouraged, taking Beca's arm and lightly tugging her towards the door. "We can talk once you're a little calmer." Beca was pouting as Chloe steered her towards their room, but she didn't fight back. She knew that Chloe was just trying to do what was best, and really her head did hurt.

"I've told her before..."

"I know you have honey. But you know Stacie, she never listens." Chloe's tone was placating as she turned off the bedroom lights and guided Beca into bed. "It'll be okay, you just need some sleep. You've been up late a lot this week, you know you need more sleep than that." Chloe lay with Beca, holding her close.

"I just don't need to see her thongs, Chlo. And I have to be up late, Emily can't be alone dealing with all that in her head." Beca tried to reason, curling in close to her girlfriend and yawning. She was  **exhausted** , and was likely to fall asleep the second she closed her eyes. Chloe sighed, running her fingers through her hair.

"We'll talk about that once you've slept a little." She settled on, before starting to sing softly, sweetly letting Beca know that the conversation was over and it was time to sleep. It worked, and it wasn't even two minutes later when Beca was fast asleep, leaving Chloe trapped. If she moved, Beca would wake up. The curse of the light sleeper. But really, she enjoyed having Beca tucked up against her too much to truly complain about being stuck in bed with her.

Chloe let Beca sleep for an hour, before nudging her awake easily. She wanted to make sure that Beca didn't sleep too much now, leading to her being awake all night again.

"Does your head still hurt, sweetie?" Chloe asked softly while Beca stretched and grumbled.

"A little."

"Okay, I'll grab some painkillers and water and we'll talk." Chloe smiled, rolling herself to her feet. "Don't go back to sleep." She added in on warning before heading to get a glass of water from the bathroom. Beca sat up, rubbing her temples softly. Her head wasn't as bad as it had been, and really she knew she needed to go and apologise to Stacie. While her thong drying habit was a little gross, it wasn't worthy of the screeching that Beca had put her through.  
"Here." Chloe held out the pills and Beca accepted them with a slight smile, swallowing them down.  
"Now about Emily..." Chloe started.

"I'm not gonna let her keep going through this alone." Beca said instantly.

"I know. That's okay, you don't have to. But rather than sitting up all night watching TV with her, why not invite her in here. We've a big enough bed and it means you'll get at least some sleep. You need more sleep than you're getting Beca, this isn't healthy." There was the unspoken threat in Chloe's voice that made Beca sigh. She knew Chloe was right, of course.

"You'd be okay with that, Chlo?"

"I'd be more okay with that than you continuing on like this."

"That's avoiding the question." Beca pointed out. Chloe sighed, rolling her eyes and running her fingers through her hair.

"I'd be okay with it. I care about Emily too. The only reason I'm not volunteering to take over for you-"

"No!"

"-is because I know you wouldn't let me. And she seems to have bonded with you more anyway. So this is a compromise."

"I'll suggest it to her." Beca agreed. Chloe smiled and leaned forward, kissing Beca softly.

"Thank you, baby."

~~~

"With the two of you?" Emily asked, hovering in the door of Beca and Chloe's bedroom anxiously. They'd had more cocoa (Beca had promised Chloe that she'd cut down on the marshmallows however) and Beca had brought up Chloe's idea of how they could get more sleep.

"Yeah. Then, if you have more bad dreams, I'm right there for you. And Chloe will stop trying to drug me to make me sleep." Beca shrugged, offering Emily a smile. "Come on, it's a nice bed." Emily hesitated for a moment before sighing. Honestly, she was pretty tired too, and it wasn't fair on Beca that she kept staying up to watch movies with her.

"Yeah okay. We'll try it." Emily agreed. Beca held in the sigh of relief as she tugged Emily into their room, almost instantly softening at the sight of Chloe, bleary eyed, sitting up a little.

"Stop talkin' and get in bed you two, it's late."

"Yes ma'am." Beca teased, squeezing Emily's hand and clambering into the bed. She set them up so that she was sandwiched between Chloe and Emily for now. Despite the fact that it meant she was roasting between their body heat, it allowed her to sleep with the cuddles she'd grown annoyingly used to, and keep an eye on Emily.  
"Okay?"

"Yeah... you were right, it's a nice bed."

"Sleep time, shhh!" Chloe mumbled, one arm snaking over Beca's side to hold her close. Beca winked at Emily in the gloom, raising a finger to her lips with a smile. Emily smiled back and closed her eyes. It took a minute or two before Beca felt comfortable closing her own eyes, but when she did, she was fast asleep pretty quickly.

~~~

It had been two weeks. And in that time, there had been three nights of bad dreams that ended with Beca bringing Emily into their bed. Chloe had gotten used to it, at this point. Sometimes she didn't wake up when they came to bed and was suddenly confronted with Emily in their bed come morning. She had no problem with it, it was nice to see that they were both improving. 

Emily was starting to bond with the rest of the Bella's, though she and Beca were clearly closest. And now Chloe was trying to get involved with her. After all, if Beca was so invested in this girl, she should be too. Not to mention, this was the future of the Bella's all wrapped in one girl. Well, so long as they won the Worlds.

"Come on, Legacy, we're going food shopping!" Chloe called from the front door.

"I'm coming, sorry!" Emily yelled back, appearing at the bottom of the stairs, still trying to pull on one of her shoes.

"Buckle up!" Beca's voice followed Emily down the stairs and Chloe chuckled. Every time they were driving somewhere, without fail.

"We will, won't be long, love you."

"Love you too, have fun Emily!"

"Bye Beca!" Emily finally got her shoe on properly and followed Chloe to the car. Waiting until Emily had her seatbelt done up (since Beca would ask later), Chloe wondered what shopping with Emily would be like. After all, there was a reason the other Bella's were banned from household grocery shopping and it was a lot to do with shopping cart jousting.  
"So is this where you tell me to stay away from your girlfriend?" Emily asked once they were away from the house. Chloe snorted, shaking her head.

"No, this is where you and I go grocery shopping so that we can have five minutes of peace away from everyone else."

"Oh... why not take Beca?"

"She hates shopping. And everyone else is banned from coming shopping with me otherwise we'd be down several Bella's."

"You'd hurt them?"

"No, they'd do it to themselves. They're all idiots." Emily laughed and Chloe smiled at the sound, chuckling herself.

"Good to know. And nice to not be counted as an idiot."

"We'll see on that second part." Chloe teased, grinning over at Emily. "I'm sure you'll be fine." She added on in re-assurance.

Once they'd parked, Chloe handed Emily the list she'd drawn up of what they needed for the house. Everyone chipped in money each month for groceries and they could put anything on the list, but Chloe could veto expensive stuff if needed. It was a system that served them well, and it eliminated any 'this is mine' arguing within the house, since all groceries belonged to everyone. Some of the girls bought extra of stuff they really wanted, but most of the food was just for everyone. The system would change if there were ever problems, but they were all friends and were all pretty respectful, so there didn't seem to be any need.

"So you always do this by yourself?" Emily asked, leaning on the cart as Chloe debated between name and generic brand snack foods, trying to decide what would be generic this month.

"Yeah, pretty much." Chloe admitted, making her decision and tossing them in the cart, waving for Emily to keep following her. "It suits me fine, really. I like grocery shopping and it means I can always make sure there's fruit and vegetables in the house too." She pointed out with a grin. "Otherwise you'd all live on ready meals and snack foods."

"Okay, fair point." They moved down the aisle slowly, Chloe ticking things off on the list as she went. "Then why invite me?"

"Well, I take everyone at least once. And you haven't done anything dumb with the cart yet, or tried to sneak in extras. Or whined. I might start bringing you with me. Plus, you'll be head Bella next year, if all goes well. So you'll probably have to do this yourself." Chloe pointed out. Emily nodded, her face burning slightly at the thought of ever having to replace the current Bella's.

"What dumb stuff can you  _do_ with a shopping cart?" Emily asked after another few minutes of silence.

"Ask the others. I'm not telling you while you've got a shopping cart under your control. Oranges or Watermelon?" Chloe asked, motioning to the fruits.

"Oranges. Easier to eat in a hurry."

"Good choice." Chloe set them in the cart, offering Emily a smile. "You know you can ask us for anything, right?" She checked as they continued their journey around the store.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I know you and Beca are close, and that's really great! But you can rely on us all. If there's a problem, you can talk to any of us."

"Oh... I know. I just feel bad about keeping Beca awake as it is. I know I'd just feel way worse if I did it to others too." Emily admitted, suddenly refusing to look at Chloe. Despite it starting to feel almost normal, Emily still felt horribly guilty about interrupting Chloe's sleep with her stupid dreams, and invading her bed. Even with Beca assuring her repeatedly that it had been Chloe's idea in the first place.

"That's okay. I just wanted you to know. Me especially, if you want to talk to somebody who knows what you've been through. We're family now." Chloe squeezed Emily's shoulder, offering her a smile. "Now, how about a treat? I happen to know there's an ice-cream store in the mall, since you've been so helpful."

"I didn't bring any money..."

"My treat, as thanks for helping with the groceries."

"Really? Thanks Chloe, that's really nice!"

~~~

Chloe liked sleeping. She liked the warmth under the blankets, she liked having Beca so close to her, safe and sound. And she liked the chance to recharge. If it had been anyone else interrupting this precious time of hers, she'd have been annoyed.

"Beca? Chloe?" The quiet voice sounded from the door and Chloe sat up blearily, rubbing her eyes to try and solidify the outline of Emily in the door into an actual person rather than a silhuoutte.

"What's wrong?" Beca asked, already making to get up.

"I had another bad dream... Can I just come sleep in here?"

"Of course you can, sweetheart." Chloe said, her words closely followed by a yawn as she pulled Beca back. "Come get settled. Sure you just wanna go back to sleep?"

"Yeah... is that okay?" Emily asked, the bed dipping further as she slid herself in the sheets. Beca was already half asleep again, so Chloe took it upon herself to soothe Emily. It felt like it was her turn, after all.

"Of course it is, Emily. Whatever you need."

"Thanks guys." Emily settled and Chloe lay back down, yawning and squeezing Beca happily. There was silence in the room for a good thirty seconds before Beca rolled over to face Chloe, suddenly clearly wide awake.

"We have a toddler!" She panic whispered. Chloe frowned, cracking an eye at her girlfriend.

"Huh? Where?"

"We have someone who comes into our bed after bad dreams, we have a toddler!"

"Beca, I can hear you..." Emily spoke up quietly and Chloe stifled a snort.

"I think we should all go to sleep, parents and toddlers alike." Chloe mumbled, squeezing Beca again with a sleepy grin.

"I hate you both."

"Love you too Emily. Sleep well." Chloe said, closing her eyes again, hoping that the others would follow her lead.

"Night." Beca yawned, suddenly half asleep again. Chloe wondered if she'd even remember this conversation come morning. Either way, it'd be hilarious.

"Night... parents." Emily was clearly hesitant about making the joke, but it earned a soft snort from Chloe. She had a feeling this would be a long running joke from now on. For some reason, she was entirely fine with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed the fluff-fest!
> 
> Like I said in my opening notes, feel free to suggest stuff if you want, and even if you don't, drop a comment in the box tellin' me whatcha think of these, as reviews make me real happy~!
> 
> Later, tators!


End file.
